3 Changes to Parental Benefit in 2020

With the start of the year, an amendment introduced several positive changes to the Czech parental benefits law. If you are a parent already drawing benefits, you should receive an official letter with all the changes in the next few months, from the local Employment office (Úřad práce). 

Note: the eligibility conditions applying to foreign parents remain unchanged. For further details concerning the conditions and application procedures, read our comprehensive guides on family benefits.

Changes

 The most important news is that the total sum of the parental benefit has been raised:

• from CZK 220,000 to CZK 300,000 for one (youngest) child younger than 4 years of age
• CZK 330,000 has been raised to CZK 450,000 for multiple children (twins, triplets etc.) younger than 4 years of age.

Also raised was the maximal monthly limit for families whose daily basis cannot be assessed (daily basis is a sum calculated according to the income of one of the parents during the 12 months preceding the month the baby was born in):

• to CZK 10,000 for one (youngest) child
• to CZK 15,000 for multiple (youngest) children (twins, triplets etc.)

Another change concerns the maximal allowed number of hours a child younger than 2 years of age can stay in a pre-school establishment (i.e. nursery, kindergarten, care centre etc.) while the family are drawing parental benefit.

• It has been doubled from 46 to 92 hours per month.

Who will be affected

The above-mentioned changes affect families who apply for parental benefit from January 2020, but also families who have started drawing the benefit in the previous years and are still in the process of drawing the originally allocated sum (CZK 220,000 or 330,000) at the moment. Also, the families still have to fulfill the basic eligibility requirements – their youngest child/children have not yet turned 4 years of age and they have not yet used up the original total amount of the benefit. If the original parental benefit has already beed officially ended, it is not possible to reapply. 

The new total sum of parental benefit (CZK 300,000 or 450,000) will be applied automatically – if you’re eligible, ­­­­there’s no need to contact the Employment office about this change.

If you’re drawing the benefit in the maximal allowed monthly sum and wish to raise it to the new monthly maximum (CZK 10,000 or 15,000 per month), you will need to apply for the change using a standard form. But no sooner than 3 months since you last changed your monthly amount.

More details about the amendment (in Czech only) can be found on the official website of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

In case you have further questions or need help with this, feel free to contact ­us­.